Queer Ancestor Spotlight: The Fuck Tree
The Fuck Tree is sessile oak tree on Hampstead Heath in north London. It is located in an area known for gay cruising going as far back as the Victorian era. It’s popularity is due to the shape of its trunk, which is ideal for having sex. In 2023, London-based reporter Bron Maher wrote about the Fuck Tree for The Fence. In this piece he described the tree as:
“The roots of the tree splay out like a hand clutching a bed sheet; the trunk is prone and abdomen-high, its belly flat to the Heath floor before making an abrupt 45-degree lift toward the canopy. This tree, I tell you, has a slutty little back arch"
Personal: Reflections from the Red Dragon Feast
Over the weekend I was able to attend my first DC Red Dragon Feast and it was such an incredible experience. This is a queer magical ritual which began on the West Coast in the 1980s. This ongoing spell was first brought into being as a way to bring hope during the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic with the goal of focusing this energy towards finding a cure. It has since been expanded to include all blood-borne diseases.
Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Pedro Zamora
Pedro Zamora was a Cuban-American AIDS educator and television personality who was a pioneer in humanizing the AIDS epidemic in the early 1990s. He was a cast member on The Real World: San Francisco and was one of the first openly gay men with AIDS to be portrayed in popular media.